The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office conducted a massive marijuana bust in Blocksburg that netted 17 arrests, officials said Friday.

Lt. Steve Knight classified the operation as a "very large commercial grow."

"It's one of the larger we've seen in quite some time," he said.

Deputies searched a 45 acre parcel on the 2000 block of Sunset Ridge Road on Thursday morning. The grow operation they found consisted of marijuana being grown in two large greenhouses, outside in the open and inside a home, a press release said.

There were 718 growing plants, between six and eight feet tall, which deputies estimated would produce one to two pounds of marijuana bud each. Inside a shed, deputies reported finding 900 pounds of drying marijuana. In the home, they turned up two large marijuana trimming machines, 132 pounds of dried marijuana and 261 bags of marijuana ready to sell, the release said.

In total, deputies found approximately 1,293 pounds of dried marijuana. The release said dried marijuana currently goes for about $2,000 a pound. Officials estimated the value of both the dried marijuana and live marijuana crop -- about 718 pounds -- at more than $4 million.

Several suspects told investigating officers they were hired to work at the marijuana grow as laborers.

"We're seeing a large influx of transients and people from out of the state and out of the country who want to come to Humboldt County," Knight said. "It's putting a lot of stress on us."

He said such a large bust is incredibly labor and time intensive for local law enforcement -- which also included the Eureka Police Department's Problem Oriented Policing Team and Humboldt County Drug Task Force -- because of the large amount of evidence collected and the number of people arrested.

Six of the arrestees -- all women -- were booked and released because the female section of the Humboldt County jail was at capacity, Knight said.

They were released on their "own recognizance" Knight said, and will have to appear in court.